The refusal of significant numbers of parents to vaccinate their children
has created a sizable group of people needing very much to be studied, and
has raised a number of important public health issues. Foremost among them
is the fear that a large reservoir of unvaccinated persons could contribute
to epidemic outbreaks that might involve vaccinated individuals as well.
Equally pressing are the immediate practical questions of how best to
protect the unvaccinated persons from disease, how to prevent such
outbreaks if possible, and how to treat them effectively if they do occur.
The long-term question which interests me the most is what the general
health of this unvaccinated group will be like, and what we can deduce from
this data concerning how vaccines really act.
I would like to begin by proposing that we use the terms vaccinated and
unvaccinated instead of immunized and unimmunized, since the basis of the
vaccination controversy is the belief of many parents that the vaccines do
not produce a true immunity', but rather act in some other fashion--or, in
my view, that they act immunosuppressively.
This may sound like a purely semantic distinction, but in fact it bears
directly on the first question raised above. If the vaccines conferred a
true immunity, as the natural illnesses do, then the unvaccinated people
would pose a risk only to themselves. Children recovering from the measles
or polio or whooping cough need never fear getting them again, no matter
how often they are reexposed in the future. So, the reports of large-scale
pertussis outbreaks in the United Kingdom since the vaccine was made
optional seem to me a convincing argument against vaccinating anybody, even
those who desire it, because if the vaccine produces authentic immunity,
then this rebound phenomenon should not occur.

Furthermore, we should be skeptical about the "outbreaks" that are reported
to have occurred. Pertussis, or "whooping cough," is actually rather
difficult to diagnose conclusively, as it requires special cultures or
antibody tests that many laboratories cannot perform and that many doctors,
in the presence of suggestive symptoms, rarely take the trouble to order.
Conversely, there are other cases of pertussis with typical signs and
symptoms but negative cultures and no detectable antibodies. In other
words, whooping cough as a clinical syndrome need not be associated with
the organism Bordetella pertussis, against which the vaccine is prepared,
or indeed with any microorganism whatsoever.

Reservoirs of people unvaccinated against measles, mumps, or diphtheria, on
the other hand, should result in periodic outbreaks of these diseases. But
again, authentic immunity, would insure that only the unvaccinated would
fall ill, which has never proved to be the case. All known out breaks of
these diseases in the post vaccine era have included large numbers of
vaccinated people as well; an. in many instances a large majority of the
cases had previously been vaccinated, some of them quite recently.
The argument that parents should vaccinate their children to protect
society as a whole from epidemic does not make sense. Such epidemic argue
rather against vaccinating the ones who were vaccinated but still came down
with the disease as soon as they were exposed to it. Likewise, if we accept
partial or temporary immunity--conceding that the vaccine are not that
effective, but that we have no other alternative to these rebound
epidemics--then are we not simply throwing good lives after bad, rather
like acknowledging that our patients are addicted to dangerous drugs yet
fearing to withdraw them or even withhold them from others, lest the
original error be fully or frankly exposed?

Which brings us to the second question, namely, how to protect your
unvaccinated child from an acute out break of one of these illnesses in the
vicinity. The first priority is clearly to know the illness--its signs and
symptoms, its natural history and vehicles of spread, its prevention and
treatment.

Rather than reading this information from a pediatrics text and the passing
it along to you, I suggest that you read up on these diseases. Even more
importantly, meet with your local pediatrician or primary healthcare
provider and plan a course of action. If you cannot immediately find
someone whom you can work with or relate to, keep looking. Your local
support system is too important to be left for the time when you need to
call on it in a hurry.

Taking responsibility for not vaccinating is no different from taking
responsibility for a homebirth or any other form of alternative health
care. It calls for not a substitute for conventional care, but rather a
different relationship to the healing process and the health-care system,
based on personal choice and direct participation. We still need help when
our children get sick, and we need to know that this help is available to
us.

In the event of an outbreak, a great deal can be done to minimize the risk
to those exposed and to treat those who actually fall ill--much of which
does not involve chemical drugs or vaccines of questionable safety and
effectiveness. The homeopathic method, one such approach, uses minute doses
of natural substances to stimulate and enhance the natural defense
mechanisms of the host. The homeopathic prevention and treatment of
specific acute diseases are discussed in detail in the highly recommended
book Homeopathy in Epidemic Diseases, by Dr. Dorothy Shepherd, a prominent
English homeopath.'

The homeopathic approach to epidemic diseases in general was first employed
by Hahnemann in 1799, during an extensive scarlet fever epidemic in the
province of Saxony.2 After he had treated a dozen or so cases in the usual
homeopathic fashion, giving small doses of remedies capable of producing
similar illnesses experimentally, Hahnemann realized that one remedy helped
to cure at least 75 percent of the cases, a second remedy covered another
15 percent or so, and the remaining 10 percent required a variety of
different remedies corresponding to the unique features of each case. The
principal remedy, which corresponded to the genus epidemicus (the main
characteristics of the outbreak as a whole), was then given out
prophylactically to people exposed to the disease, and also to patients in
the early stages of illness--before the critical point, when other remedies
would sometimes be needed, was reached.

The results were quite dramatic. Those so treated either did not get sick
at all or suffered much milder illnesses, on the whole, than their
compatriots who were not treated or who received the drugs and other heroic
measures in standard practice at the time. Hahnemann became justly famous
for this exploit; and since this time, his method has been used with equal
or greater success throughout the world in treating numerous outbreaks of
cholera, typhus, smallpox, yellow fever, influenza, and other acute
diseases of similar type. Why it has not been more widely influential in
this country is a great mystery, and clearly has to do with the historic
decline of homeopathy as a thought form until the advent of the alternative
health and self-care movement of the past 10 years or so.

"The argument that parents should vaccinate their children to
protect society as a whole from epidemics does not make sense"

Pertussis
"Whooping cough" can be quite a nasty and prolonged illness, even in older
children, in whom it is seldom fatal or dangerous. It can certainly
threaten life in young infants under one year of age, because of the
narrowness of the immature laryngeal opening and its particular
vulnerability to obstruction from any inflammation or swelling. It is
rarely serious in children older than six; and adults, for some reason,
rarely contract the illness at all, even when they are exposed and have
never had it before.

The incubation period varies from one to two weeks; and the illness often
begins quite slowly, with some fever, typical upper respiratory symptoms,
and a cough that gradually becomes more and more paroxysmal, until the
characteristic spasms appear, often terminating in vomiting or tenacious
sputum ejected with great violence. Such a cough may commonly persist for
six weeks or even longer, suggesting an autoallergic as well as an
infectious origin.

The nosode Pertussin, prepared from the sputum of patients with this
disease, is the homeopathic remedy generally used for prophylaxis of
exposed children (Pertussin 30c, one dose daily for two weeks after
contact); and it can also be given in early stages of illness, at four-hour
intervals. Drosera is the remedy most often used for the illness itself,
although other remedies may also be needed. For children with a well
developed cough, Drosera 30c or Pertussin 30c may be given every four
hours, or even more often if necessary. A physician should be consulted if
the illness is severe.

[comment from Sheri.....careful here - it could be
any remedy that you need - another homeopath I know said that is rarely
Drosera or Pertussin that is helpful in pertussis - you have to
individualize]

Homeopathic remedies are available without prescription, but care should be
exercised to obtain them from a manufacturer belonging to the American
Association of Homeopathic Pharmacies. This way, you will know that they
have been prepared in accordance with the standards of the U.S. Homeopathic
Pharmacopoeia.

Diphtheria
Diphtheria is rarely seen today in developed countries, but small outbreaks
have occurred in the southwestern U.S. (San Antonio in 1977). The illness
is primarily a poisoning attributable to the toxin (a highly antigenic
protein of high molecular weight) elaborated by the diphtheria bacillus.
Diphtheria toxin is the source from which the standard vaccine is prepared
(diphtheria "toxoid" is the toxin denatured by heat, alum precipitated? and
preserved with an organomercury compound), and is also the source of the
homeopathic remedy, or nosode, Diphtherinum, which is commonly used for
prophylaxis and for treatment of complicated cases.

Diphtheria begins as a "cold" or sore throat after a very brief incubation
period of two or three days. The primary infection is usually in the throat
or nasopharynx, and quickly becomes apparent with a greyish, ulcerating
"pseudomembrane," foul breath, high fever, and marked swelling of the
cervical Iymph nodes (producing the classic "bull neck" in severe cases).
Complications such as heart or kidney failure or esophageal obstruction may
follow within a few days; and severe cases may be accompanied by difficulty
in swallowing or talking, due to residual postdiphtheritic paralysis that
may require further treatment. Diphtherinum 30c or 200c may be given in a
daily dose for the first three days following exposure. A physician should
be consulted and other remedies used if the illness develops.

Tetanus
Tetanus is essentially a wound infection complicated by inoculation of
tetanus spores into the wound and germination of these under strict
anaerobic conditions. The infection itself is relatively minor; like
diphtheria (and its close relative botulism), tetanus is largely an
intoxication produced by a highly antigenic protein, tetanus toxin, against
which the standard vaccine is prepared by heat denaturation.
Tetanus does not occur epidemically, and cannot be passed from person to
person, although conditions associated with wound infections (such as
warfare) definitely favor it if the spores are present. The spore forming
organisms live in horse manure, and to a lesser extent in human manure
(chiefly among people who keep horses); but the spores themselves are
highly weather-resistant and can survive in the soil for decades. They will
germinate only under strict anaerobic conditions--such as a deep, jagged
puncture wound with enough tissue damage to get the infection started (the
proverbial "rusty nail") or a simple wound infection (a severe burn or an
infected umbilical cord stump in a newborn) which consumes all the
available oxygen and thereby allows the spores to germinate underneath.
Careful attention to wound hygiene will effectively eliminate the
possibility of tetanus in the vast majority of puncture wounds. Wounds
should be carefully inspected, thoroughly cleaned, surgically debrided of
dead tissue (under local anesthesia, if necessary), and not allowed to
close until healing is well under way "from below." Two homeopathic
remedies that may have a useful role at this stage are Ledum 30c, which
should be given every two to four hours from the time of the puncture, and
Hypericum 30c, which should be substituted if any signs of infection are
present.

I have had no experience with Tetanus, the remedy prepared from the toxin
itself; and tetanus toxoid is of no value unless the individual has
previously been vaccinated, since a primary antibody response takes at
least 14 days, and the incubation period of the disease can be considerably
shorter than this (three to 14 days). Hypericum can reputedly treat as well
as prevent tetanus, but I would recommend giving human antitoxin at the
first sign of the disease, since it is far less effective later on.
If you do decide to vaccinate your children with tetanus toxoid alone,
there is no need to vaccinate until the child is old enough to walk around
and navigate on his or her own (18 to 24 months), at which time the vaccine
is far less likely to cause complications.
[comment from Sheri.........this vaccine is also extremely dangerous]

Poliomyelitis
The poliovirus produces no illness at all in over 90 percent of those
exposed to it; among others, it causes, at most, an ordinary flu syndrome
with fever, weakness, gastrointestinal symptoms, aches, and pains. Even in
epidemic conditions, poliomyelitis (the severe central nervous system
complication) develops only in relatively few anatomically susceptible
persons, most of whom eventually recover.

The typical symptoms of poliomyelitis include extreme sensitivity to touch,
irritability, stiff neck, and fine tremors in the early or preparalytic
stage, which may look rather like a viral meningitis. Not infrequently, the
fever will return to normal for a few days just prior to the onset of these
central nervous system symptoms, at which time it will rise again,
producing the "dromedary," or double-hump, fever chart. Paralysis--due to
inflammation of the anterior horn cells, or motor nuclei of the spinal
cord--often appears suddenly and early in the course of the illness, as
complete loss of voluntary movement in a single limb, or perhaps of the
palate and throat muscles (in the dangerous brain-stem or bulbar type),
producing disturbances of swallowing. Most of these cases will still
recover, with residual paralysis or death often supervening much later,
after the acute inflammation has subsided.

The homeopathic remedy Lathyrus sativus has been found to correspond most
closely in its symptomatology to central nervous system polio, and has been
used with great effectiveness both for prophylaxis of exposed individuals
and for treatment in the early stages of the illness, before irreversible
damage has occurred. According to Dr. Shepherd, a Dr. Taylor Smith of
Johannesburg used Lathyrus 30c, one dose every 16 days, in 82 healthy
people (aged six months to 20 years) living in a seriously infected area,
12 of whom were direct contacts. This regimen was continued for the
duration of the outbreak, and not one of these people developed
poliomyelitis.

Dr. Smith also used Lathyrus 30c in three doses, 30 minutes apart, for a
second group of 34 children who were ill with fever, neck rigidity, and
muscle tenderness of varying severity. All of these children recovered
promptly and completely, without any sequelae.

Dr. Grimmer of Chicago, a well known homeopath of the thirties and forties,
recommended Latharus 30c or 200c in a single dose repeated every three
weeks for the duration of the epidemic, and stated most emphatically, from
his own experience, that paralysis will not develop in those so treated.
Other remedies may be required for the illness itself, at the first sign of
which a physician should, of course, be consulted.

Measles
Wild-type measles is a strong, febrile illness lasting at least one or two
weeks, with a long incubation period of 14 to 21 days; a characteristically
smooth, confluent rash; "measly" or runny catarrh of eyes and nose; and a
sizable risk of further developments, such as pneumonia, otitis media, or
even laryngitis of the croupy or whooping-cough type. The incidence of
measles in susceptible contacts approaches 100 percent; and in populations
not previously exposed to it, the fatality rate may be 20 percent or more.
After generations of contact with European and North American cultures, it
became a largely self-limited illness for these populations, one still
memorable but producing complete recovery and a permanent or lifelong
immunity in the vast majority of cases.

The prophylaxis and treatment of measles varies somewhat from outbreak to
outbreak, the genus epidemicus corresponding most closely to Pulsatilla in
Hahnemann's series, Bryonia in Dr. Shepherd's experience, and probably
other remedies in other times and places. In the U.S., largely because of
mass vaccination programs, acute measles is now predominantly a disease of
adolescents and young adults, undoubtedly involving some genetic
interaction with the vaccine virus; and it will probably call for still
other remedies. Pulsatilla remains the remedy most often recommended for
prophylaxis, although my own experience is still too limited to confirm or
refute it. [Sheri comment........again, if your child should come down with
measles you have to take all of the individual symptoms to find the correct
remedy]

Mumps
Mumps, or epidemic parotitis, resembles measles in its highly contagious
nature and its predilection for the older age groups as a result of the
vaccine program; but it is rather milder, as a rule. After an incubation
period of three weeks, it begins with fever, runny nose, tenderness around
the ears, and swelling of the parotid on one side, spreading to the other
in a few days. About 25 percent of boys with mumps show swelling and
inflammation of one or both testicles; in girls, the ovaries and breasts
are occasionally affected. Residual scarring and atrophy of one testicle is
sometimes seen in adolescent boys and young men.

The nosode Parotidinum, prepared from the saliva of an infected individual,
may be used prophylactically, although Pilocarpine 6c is the remedy
recommended by Shepherd for both prevention and treatment. I have had no
personal experience using remedies with mumps. [Sheri comment........again,
if your child should come down with mumps you have to take all of the
individual symptoms to find the correct remedy]

Rubella
Rubella, or German measles, is the mildest of all the illnesses for which
vaccines are presently required, and very often escapes detection entirely.
In the adolescent and young adult populations--those presently most likely
to develop it--the illness may be somewhat bothersome, with arthritic
symptoms more likely; the same symptoms are often encountered after
vaccination of these age groups. In children, there is no reason to treat
rubella at all, in most cases. Pregnant women, especially those exposed in
the first trimester, may be given Pulsatilla 6c or 30c every day for 14
days following exposure, or every four hours for fever and acute symptoms.
Rubella should be suspected in the event of a mild fever; punctate rash;
and swollen or tender lymph nodes behind the ears and neck, and around the
base of the skull--an area seldom affected in other ailments.
People often ask if it is possible to "vaccinate" homeopathically, to use
remedies for the same purpose that the vaccines are normally given. This
question addresses not short-term prophylaxis in the event of an acute
outbreak, which is discussed above, but routine, long-term protection of
the entire population against these diseases.

There is some evidence that remedies can be used in this way. I know of
several British veterinarians who use homeopathic rabies nosode in lieu of
injections to protect their dogs--with no serious side effects and, as yet,
no rabies. But in order to do so, they must give the remedy repeatedly
throughout the life of the animal--an approach that would be much less
suitable for humans. This brings us back to the concept of trying to
permanently eliminate susceptibility to specific diseases. Why attempt such
an uneconomical fantasy, as well as an unnecessary one, since the remedies
work so splendidly well when illness is actually present or threatening?
People also ask whether or not homeopathic treatment can be used in
conjunction with vaccines. Homeopathic remedies may be given to mitigate
the effect or severity of vaccines, just as they have been used with good
effect in cases of vaccine-related illness. Certainly, when vaccines are
given, I would recommend giving Ledum 30c--the basic first-aid remedy for
puncture wounds--immediately afterward, in three doses 30 minutes apart;
and following it with either the nosode prepared from the disease or
vaccine itself or Thuja 30c, the general "antidote" to all vaccines, in
three doses 12 hours apart. [Comment from Sheri......again, not in
agreement that you can work magic this way and avoid damage]

Be aware of the possibility that a strong family history of vaccine
reaction may greatly increase the risk of receiving that particular
vaccine. Any child whose brother or sister or parent reacted strongly or
violently to a vaccine should certainly be excused from receiving it,
preferably by obtaining a medical exemption from a physician practicing in
that state. Likewise, any child whose sibling or parent previously
contracted poliomyelitis, or a severe or complicated case of measles or
whooping cough or any of the other diseases listed, should not receive the
vaccine prepared against that illness. Other grounds for medical exemption
include preexisting epilepsy, central nervous system disorder, or any
severe or disabling chronic disease where the risk of serious exacerbation
from the vaccine outweighs the more imponderable long-term benefit.
This brings us to the final question of the long-term impact of mass
vaccination programs on individual and community health. Since I have
expressed my concerns on this score, many people have asked if any research
has been done to substantiate them. I can only appreciate the irony in the
fact that the compulsory feature of these programs is precisely what makes
it so conveniently impossible to study them--so much so, that parents
refusing to vaccinate their children deserve to be congratulated for making
such research possible, and should, in fact, be recruited when it is ready
to be carried out.

Equally noteworthy is the unprecedented breadth and scope of the research
that will be required. Nothing less than the total health picture of
vaccinated and unvaccinated children, followed over an entire generation,
will suffice--a great collective enterprise that not only will be exciting
and important in itself, but surely will yield invaluable new models for
holistic medical research generally, models that take us well beyond the
outmoded focus on single "disease entities" in which we are still
imprisoned today. So, regardless of whether or not you decide to vaccinate,
I urge you all to think about a mechanism for how collaborative research of
this kind can be conducted, and how each of us can play our part in it.

2. Samuel Hahnemann, MD (1755- 1843), the discoverer of homeopathy. .
3. R. Moskowitz, "The Case Against Immunizations,"Journal of the American
Institute of Homeopathy 6 (7 March 1983). Available from the National
Center for Homeopathy, 1500 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC.
Abridged version published in Mothering (Spring 1984). .

Ricbard Moskowitz, MD (48) received his undergraduate degree. from Harvard
and his medical degree from New York University. He has studied classical
homeopath with Professor George Vithoulkas in Athens, Greece. Dr. Moskowitz
practices at tbe Turning Point Wellness. Center in Watertown,
Massachusetts. and is a past President of the National Center for
Homeopathy.